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The Novice  by daw the minstrel

9. Helping Hands

Eilian had turned at the sound of Legolas's angry voice and seen Galelas let go of his brother's arm and respond with equal heat. A second later, Thelion and Maldor, too, had turned, for the quarreling novices had let their voices rise without realizing it.

"Drat those two!" Maldor had exclaimed and risen to go toward them. Eilian had anticipated his move, however, and was already striding toward the riverbank. He was as irritated with the pair as Maldor was, he thought grimly, and he had every intention of administering the most severe tongue-lashing that he could muster. He had learned the art from the notoriously sharp-tongued Ithilden who had probably learned it from Thranduil. Seasoned warriors in the southern patrol had flinched under its sting, so he had reason to expect that it would make an impression on these two.

Thus, Maldor and Eilian were already in motion toward the novices when the riverbank began to crumble.

Eilian heard Legolas cry out and saw him grab Galelas's arm and fling him to safety. And then he saw Legolas slip and slide with unbearable slowness toward the edge, clutching at the small tree. With a cry of his own, he seemed to himself to leap across the distance between them, landing on his belly and looking over the edge, where, unbelievably, Legolas still clung to the sapling with only his right hand.

Eilian grabbed at his brother's wrist with his own right hand just as the little tree tore loose from the mud and tumbled twenty feet into the storm-swollen river below. He tightened his grip on his brother's mud-slickened wrist, and Legolas turned a terrified face toward him. Eilian brought his left hand around and gripped Legolas's upper arm, trying to drag him back to safety. Under his brother's weight, he was distantly aware of something tearing in his injured arm.

Suddenly Maldor was lying beside him, slithering far forward to grab at Legolas's other arm. He turned his head back to where Galelas stood frozen in horror. "Hold on to my legs!" he urged. Galelas scrambled to grasp Maldor's legs and keep him from sliding over the bank after Legolas. Maldor hung much farther out over the edge than caution would have allowed and caught hold of the left forearm that Legolas was reaching toward him.

With Maldor beside him mirroring his movements, Eilian began to inch his way back away from the edge, drawing Legolas toward the safety that was so tantalizingly close. He could see his brother trying to grab at the bank but kept a firm grip on Legolas's arm and dragged his upper body over the edge. Suddenly, Legolas had managed to swing one leg onto the bank and was scrambling forward on his own. He collapsed in a panting heap, and Eilian wrapped his arms protectively around the young shoulders, all but weeping in his relief.

"Everyone move further back from the edge," Maldor was commanding. "Another piece of the bank could collapse at any time. Eilian! Move back!" He was dragging Legolas back, and Eilian slid along beside him, heedless of the mud that by this time had worked its way into every crease and opening in his face, hands, and clothing. Under his touch, Legolas was trembling and drawing great, heaving breaths.

"It is all right," Eilian murmured. "You are safe." He tried to wipe some of the mud from his brother's face, but his own hand was so filthy that he only added another smear to what was already there. He did not care. He needed to touch Legolas to reassure himself that the brat was all right, that he really had not fallen into the river. He wiped his little brother's face again.

Closely followed by Tonduil and Isendir, Annael skidded to a stop near his friend. The three of them had witnessed the horrifying scene from below and then rushed up the path from the river. Worried about the stability of the bank, Thelion was trying to keep them from crowding too near. To Eilian's relief, Maldor stood and began to take charge of the situation. Even covered in mud, he was a formidable figure, Eilian thought.

"He is all right," Maldor declared. "He is only shaken. Give him a few minutes, and he will be himself." He looked at the novices. "It was Legolas's turn to cook. One of you will need to do it."

"I will," said Tonduil immediately.

"Good," said Maldor, who was evidently intent on restoring normalcy. "The rest of you go and take care of whatever chores remain. You know what needs to be done by now." Shepherded by Thelion, they began to move toward the campsite, still casting looks back at the scene on the riverbank

"Not you, Galelas," Maldor added. "You stay here." Galelas halted and stood uncertainly.

With a last deep breath, Legolas pulled himself into a sitting position and looked at Eilian. "Thank you," he said. With the resilience of youth, he seemed to have regained most of his composure and stopped shaking.

Eilian smiled faintly at him. "How could I ever have explained it to Adar if I had let you fall?" he asked lightly. He had an appalling vision of having to do just that. Thranduil, Ithilden, and he could all protest as vigorously as they liked that they no longer saw Legolas as the family's baby, but Eilian knew that they all still did and were more protective of him than Legolas even suspected.

Suddenly, Legolas looked down at Eilian's arm, an expression of horror growing on his face. Eilian realized that he was rubbing at the leather brace on his left arm and that the arm underneath had begun to ache quite abominably.

"Your arm!" Legolas cried. "Did you injure it again?"

Drawn by Legolas's cry, Maldor looked at Eilian, who was still seated on the ground next to Legolas. "Did you re-injure it?" he asked.

Eilian's experience as a captain had taught him that injuries needed to be honestly assessed and dealt with. If, out of pride, a warrior denied that an injury existed, he led his companions to rely on him when he might not be able to support them, and he courted greater injury in the long run. He took a moment now to consider how his arm felt. "I believe that I may have torn a muscle," he admitted, "or perhaps pulled it from the bone. The bone itself is uninjured, though. My arm aches and will probably continue to do so for a while, but I do not think that the damage is serious."

Legolas gave an inarticulate cry of distress, guilt writ large on his face. "I do not believe that it is serious," Eilian repeated to him with emphasis. "It healed before and it will heal again. I can resume wearing a sling for a few days if I need to."

Maldor drew himself erect. "Stand up, Legolas," he ordered. Eilian groaned to himself. It was plain to him that Maldor intended to reprimand Galelas and Legolas immediately. Ah, well, he thought. It would have had to come some time. But could it not have waited until morning?

As Legolas climbed slowly to his feet, it was obvious that he too knew what was coming. Maldor looked from him to Galelas, standing a few feet away. "I have warned the two of you about quarreling before," he began. "Your constant state of enmity has already hurt the group's performance on this trip, and now you see the kind of real harm that can be done when you let your anger toward one another blunt your alertness to the dangers around you."

Legolas's face was white. He had been frightened by his near fall and was worried about having caused further injury to Eilian's arm. He was probably only too ready to accept the charges that Maldor was making, Eilian thought, and perhaps that was not an entirely bad state of affairs. Even Galelas looked shaken by Legolas's near escape. Eilian climbed to his own feet to watch the unfolding scene.

“When we reach home, you will both be on night guard duty for two weeks," Maldor was saying. Eilian grimaced, but neither novice reacted beyond nodding in resigned acceptance. "Together,” Maldor added emphatically. Now they both looked dismayed. Legolas actually rolled his eyes, a move that Eilian judged to be unwise. “Do you have some comment to make, Legolas?" Maldor asked. "If you like, I can always require that you also carry a heavy pack."

Eilian saw Legolas stiffen at that. "No," he muttered. "I have nothing to say."

Eilian sighed. He had seen how the previous night duty weighed on Legolas. The sentence that Maldor was imposing would try him further, but Eilian had no intention of interfering. Difficult as it was to stay out of the affair, he would not undercut Maldor in front of the novices. Moreover, these two certainly deserved some punishment for their breathtaking carelessness if nothing else. The question was one of degree, and if Eilian thought that the penalty was severe, he was not the one who was responsible for these young warriors. On this mission, Maldor was.

"I never want to have to discipline either one of you for quarreling again," Maldor was saying. "I assure you that you will not like it if I do." He paused and scanned them all. Galelas had kept his feet and was fairly clean, but Legolas, Eilian, and Maldor himself were all filthy with mud. "Go and help with meal preparations, Galelas," Maldor ordered. "The rest of us will get cleaned up."

***

With the nonchalance of youth, Legolas waded into the water fully clothed, immersed himself, and then waded back out again, heading for the campsite to change into dry clothes. Eilian dropped his own pack on the shore and watched his brother out of the corner of his eye. Legolas was more silent than usual and had been eyeing Eilian about as much as Eilian was eyeing him. Eilian was certain that Legolas was worrying about his arm. Amusingly enough, Legolas seemed to resent it when Eilian asked how he was recovering from his own ordeal. Now, with Maldor here, he was eager to return to the company of the other novices and wasted no time in doing so.

Eilian unbuckled and removed the leather brace from his arm. He pulled off his tunic and leggings, used them to wipe off the brace, and then balled them up into a muddy mess that he tossed to one side. He put the brace on again and then picked up his soap and waded into the river. Maldor frowned disapprovingly, as he swished his own filthy clothes around in the water.

"You should rinse those clothes out," Maldor said. "Otherwise, they will never come clean later."

Eilian shrugged and lowered himself into the water. "The palace laundresses will just throw them away anyway. They will not want to put them in with the other clothes to be washed. I have lost more favorite tunics that way than I like to recall."

"My wife would not approve," said Maldor austerely.

Eilian swallowed a mouthful of river water and coughed violently. Maldor had a wife! Eilian tried to imagine what she could be like. Strange visions flashed through his mind of humorless evenings spent cleaning their cottage to an inspection-ready state. In his mind's eye, he caught a glimpse of a bed and, with a shudder, hastily averted his thoughts.

Reacting to the shudder, Maldor glanced at him. "Is your arm painful enough to require medication?" he asked.

Grateful that the unarmed combat master could not read his thoughts, Eilian shook his head. "The pain is bearable," he said, "and I do not like to take anything that might dull my alertness while we are in the forest. I think, though, that I will need to wear a sling again. And tomorrow, when we attack the novices, we should bind it to my side to keep it out of harm's way."

Maldor nodded. "I am going to put you and Legolas together on the last watch tonight," he said. "You should take the opportunity to give him some advice about dealing with Galelas. Perhaps this evening's events will make them both more willing to take steps to settle their differences."

Eilian shrugged. "Either that or they will have moved beyond the possibility of ever doing so." He rubbed the soap through his hair and then lay back to rinse it out. Maldor headed toward the shore where his clean clothes lay neatly folded. He hesitated for a moment and then picked up Eilian's dirty clothes. He dunked them quickly in the river and then wrung them out.

"There really is no point in throwing away good clothes," he said censoriously. Eilian slid under the water again to hide his broad grin.

***

Eilian leaned back against the trunk of the oak tree in which he and Legolas sat. Despite what he had told Maldor about the tolerability of the pain in his arm, he had not been able to sleep before being summoned for their watch, and he had spent the hours fretting alternately about his arm and his brother. Now, he reached inside the sling that had been created from his mud-stained tunic and tried to rub the ache away, although he knew that the leather brace would prevent him from making any actual contact.

"Does your arm hurt?" Legolas asked, anxiously.

Eilian promptly withdrew his right hand from the sling. "Not much," he lied.

"I am so sorry," Legolas said miserably for what must have been the sixth time since they had taken over the watch from Annael and Thelion in the early morning hours. "What if it is so damaged this time that it will not heal?"

Eilian sighed. "Legolas, I do not think that that is the case. But even if it were, do you really think that I would choose to have my arm be whole if it meant that you had fallen down that cliff and into the river?" He looked straight at Legolas, who was frowning uneasily. "It will heal," he said. "It will be fine."

He leaned back against the tree trunk again, trying to decide what the best way was to broach the subject of Galelas. "If you really regret what happened," he said slowly, "you might consider trying to resolve the conflict between you and Galelas." He glanced at his brother. "You are going to be one of Ithilden's captains someday, Legolas. Galelas will not be the last difficult warrior that you will have to work with."

Legolas's head dropped back against the tree as he sighed, "Eilian, I do not start these arguments. Galelas does. Just what is it that you think that I can do?"

"Stop letting him set the tone of your conversations," Eilian said promptly. "Stop pretending that he will go away. You are going to be novices together for years and almost certainly will serve in the same unit at some point in the years to come. Face up to the situation and try to make it work."

"How?" Legolas sounded exasperated, but Eilian judged that at least exasperation was better than the anxious guilt that he had been wasting his energies on before.

Now Eilian settled down more comfortably to his topic. In his years captaining the southern patrol, he had learned a number of useful lessons about how best to deal with Wood-elf warriors whose arrogance was sometimes matched only by their skills. "Ask yourself what Galelas wants," he said, "and then try to make sure that he has to do what you want in order to get what he wants."

Legolas blinked. "What do you mean?" he asked. "Galelas wants to be the best at everything, including weapons use. He wants to be in charge. I do not see how I can help him to do either of those things even if I wanted to."

"True," Eilian acknowledged. "But think in smaller terms. You know that today's exercise will probably be similar to the ones you have been engaging in. What will Galelas want from the exercise?"

"If one of us is going to be captain, he will want it to be him," Legolas said flatly.

"Leave that aside for the moment," Eilian encouraged. "What else will he want?"

Legolas thought for a moment. "He will want to do well in the exercise," he said slowly. "He will want to distinguish himself individually, and he will be overjoyed if we novices managed to hold our own against you masters."

Eilian nodded. "Good," he said.

"And," Legolas went on in a rush, "he will want Maldor to praise him or, at least, not to criticize him. Also he will want Thelion's approval and yours." He glanced at his brother a little shyly. "I think that the other novices admire you," he confided gravely.

Eilian nodded again, smothering a smile. "And what do you want?" he asked.

There was a moment's stunned silence. "The same things," Legolas said, sounding surprised at the discovery, "or at least some of them. And I do not object if Galelas distinguishes himself or even if he is named captain, so long as the group does well."

"Do you think that he would be willing to allow someone else to be captain in trade for the group's doing well?" Eilian asked, genuinely curious.

"He might," said Legolas slowly, "although that would be easier for him if I were not the one who was named as the leader."

"Why not talk to him?" Eilian urged. "Convince him that you have goals in common and that you can band together to reach some of those goals."

Legolas looked thoughtful. "Perhaps it would work," he said at last. "At any rate, there is nothing to lose in trying."

Eilian smiled at him approvingly. "You have the makings of a captain after all," he said. Then, more soberly, he added, "Never forget that, whether you like it or not, there are things that you were born to do, Legolas, whether by position or by talent. You can no more change your position as the king's son than you can shed your talent with weapons."

Legolas sighed. "Is it so wrong to want to be just myself?" he asked wistfully.

Eilian regarded him sympathetically. He knew that only he and Ithilden, and perhaps their father, had any hope of understanding some of the pressures that would be brought to bear, indeed had already been brought to bear, on his younger brother. He patted Legolas's knee. "There is nothing wrong with it," he said, "so long as you do not think that your wanting it will make it so. Come," he said, sliding to the ground, graceful even with one arm in a sling. "It is time that we made another round."

***

Legolas picked up a fallen branch to add to the pile of firewood he was collecting and edged his way closer to where Galelas was engaged in the same task. Galelas looked up at him suspiciously. "Do you want something?" he asked sharply.

"As it happens, yes, I do," Legolas responded. "I want to talk to you."

"What about?"

"About cooperating during today's training exercise."

Galelas snorted. "By cooperating, I assume that you mean that I should yield to your so-called leadership, which, as I recall, did not get us very far yesterday."

"No," Legolas kept his voice as even as possible. "By cooperating, I mean that we should work together to get some things that you want as much as I do."

"Do you expect me to believe that? What kind of fool do you judge me to be?" Galelas retorted.

Legolas suppressed the urge to answer the question and tried to marshal his carefully worked out arguments. "Do you want us both to have night duty for the remainder of the time that we are novices?" he asked. "I have done it already and did not particularly enjoy the experience. But if we do not come to some sort of truce, Maldor will see to it that neither of us ever has a good night's sleep again." Galelas shrugged. He had not yet done night guard duty, and Legolas judged that he had no notion of how wearing it was when daytime training was still going on.

"And," he added, seeing that Galelas was not responding to his first point, "we will once again look incompetent in a training exercise." He eyed Galelas shrewdly, trying to judge what effect his words were having. It seemed to him that the other novice was now interested in what he was saying. "I, for one, would like to knock the sword out of Maldor's hand. Would you not enjoy doing that too?" This might not be one of the common goals that Eilian had been urging him to discover, Legolas thought, but it was clearly one that Galelas responded to. Indeed, it really was one that Legolas himself would greatly enjoy seeing come to fruition.

Galelas hesitated, and Legolas felt a surge of quickly-hidden triumph. "We can do it, you know," he urged carefully, "if we work together."

Galelas regarded him speculatively. "What did you have in mind?" he asked.





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